I. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to magnetic key holders. More particularly, the present invention relates to a rigid magnetic key holder removably attachable to the interior wall of a purse or a bag.
II. Description of the Relevant Art
A well-known and common scourge for people who use purses, purse-like bags and the like is the tendancy for objects placed therein to quickly work their way down to the lowest regions thereof The most commonly lost accessories are keys. This tendancy causes great frustration in that keys, which are used most frequently, seem to get lost in a purse most easily.
In response to this difficulty, the approach most commonly taken to providing key holders for purses relate to providing a hook or a hanger structure of some type to the interior wall of the purse at a selected place near the purse's opening. While more or less solving the problem of lost keys, this approach generally suffers from the fault of being inconvenient and awkward to use because of the effort and accuracy required for properly locating the keys on the key holder.
In U.S. Pat. No. 3,978,902 issued in 1976 to Adkinson, an alternate method of removably attaching keys to a key holder is disclosed. In this device, a piece of flexible magnetic material is adhered to the inner wall of the purse. The keys are attached to a metal fob that is removably attachable to the magnetic material. As an option, hooks are provided to the lower end of the magnetic material to provide support to the fob.
However, Adkinson suffers from at least three disadvantages. First, the flexible magnetic backing flexibly responds to bends or folds in the purse, thus resulting in the fob to be loosened from the magnetic base.
Second, the Adkinson magnetic tape is permanently fixed by an adhesive tape and is therefore not transferable from one purse to another.
Third, because Adkinson relies singularly on an adhesive backing, the surface to which the adhesive is adhered must be relatively smooth and free from pores. However, not all interior walls of purses are so constructed, and many are composed of a coarse fabric.
Accordingly, prior approaches to providing a convenient, reliable and interchangable key holder for removable attachment to the interior wall of a purse have failed.